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posted by mrpg on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the robot-scare-fad dept.

Weep for the future?

Today's 6th graders will hit their prime working years in 2030.

By that time, the "robot apocalypse" could be fully upon us. Automation and artificial intelligence could have eliminated half the jobs in the United States economy.

Or, plenty of jobs could still exist, but today's students could be locked in a fierce competition for a few richly rewarded positions requiring advanced technical and interpersonal skills. Robots and algorithms would take care of what used to be solid working- and middle-class jobs. And the kids who didn't get that cutting-edge computer science course or life-changing middle school project? They'd be relegated to a series of dead-end positions, serving the elites who did.

Alternatively, maybe Bill Gates and Elon Musk and the other big names ringing the alarm are wrong. A decade from now, perhaps companies will still complain they can't find employees who can read an instruction manual and pass a drug test. Maybe workers will still be able to hold on to the American Dream, so long as they can adjust to incremental technological shifts in the workplace.

Which vision will prove correct?

30 years into the Information Revolution and schools are only just now realizing they should teach kids how to code...


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday December 15 2017, @02:26AM (5 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 15 2017, @02:26AM (#610049) Journal

    never heard of economic depressions in feudalism

    Interesting, but... slightly inaccurate [wikipedia.org].
    Keep in mind they also had big plagues [wikipedia.org] to... mmm... trim down their 99-percenters.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday December 15 2017, @05:52AM (4 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Friday December 15 2017, @05:52AM (#610129) Journal

    Oh, yeah, plagues, barbarian hordes, famines, years with no summer, and worse. All external causes, not endemic to the mode of production itself. In fact, that what was probably the greatest weakness of the mode of production. Under-production. That, and under-investment. And a lack of innovation. Those, and having to pay 10% to a Lord for protection, and another 10% to a Church, for the same thing. So what did bring about an end to the Feudal mode of production, and why do the Dark Enlightenment alt-night types want to go back there?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday December 15 2017, @06:29AM (2 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 15 2017, @06:29AM (#610148) Journal

      So what did bring about an end to the Feudal mode of production,

      Steam

      ...and why do the Dark Enlightenment alt-night types want to go back there?

      Nothing rational, they just like coal.
      De gustibus, magister, de gustibus... can't dispute them.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Friday December 15 2017, @06:33AM (1 child)

        by mhajicek (51) on Friday December 15 2017, @06:33AM (#610153)

        Started collapsing well before steam did anything useful.

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday December 15 2017, @06:38AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 15 2017, @06:38AM (#610158) Journal

          Of course, the collapse of Feudalism started much early.
          I'd say it started about the moment it was born, they just didn't know it.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @05:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @05:57PM (#610377)

      So what did bring about an end to the Feudal mode of production

      The black plague and the sudden collapse of the supply of labor.